Gone are the days of delayed gratification when one needed to wait impatiently before seeing the results of his captured moments in print. The bygone era of photography didn’t offer much flexibility in terms of image storing, editing and distributing. The digital camera scores heavily in these areas making it a breeze to use, much to the delight of avid photographers.
Its advent has definitely made photography a joy. It’s a hassle-free gadget which can bring instantaneous feedback of a moment. It gives a lot of scope to experiment by trial and error. No more worrying about wasting of a frame in the reel for the simple reason that the digicam does not have one! The reel is replaced by a flash card which is the grey matter of the camera as it stores the images in bits.
Since I was a novice to the world of digicams, I went by the recommendation of a friend who sweared by his Canon Powershot A200. I also researched on the net and found excellent customer ratings on it. I had no hesitation in going for it also because of its pocket-friendly price tag.
Canon Powershot A200 is a neat little Digicam which churns out amazingly high quality snaps with crisp, vivid colours at great resolutions. I was really impressed with its life-like colour reproduction. There are all the modes and features one can expect of a decent camera like red-eye reduction, ambient lighting and gamma correction, distance adjustments, various flash modes etc. It does not blacken out the snaps even in the poorest of lighting conditions and does not get overexposed under bright lights. Under decent light conditions, what can I say, it’s just brilliant.
I use flash only if it’s really dark. My best snaps are the ones taken in natural light since I like the subtle interplay of light and shadows. It has upto 2 MegaPixel resolution which can be adjusted for a tradeoff between quality and quantity since it comes only with an 8MB memory card. Once can always upgrade the memory to have higher resolutions without worrying about the memory space. Once I upgraded to a 128 MB card, I could now go on ceaselessly clicking snaps like a maniac soldier firing bullets with his machine gun. What’s more, it even can record video clips albeit without sound.
The OS in the camera is feature-packed and fast. The button navigation is easy and the body is compact and ergonomic. The camera connects to the USB port of the PC and the synchronizing and editing of the snaps is a breeze. The software suite bundled with the Camera has all the necessary post-production functions.
On the negatives, it has a low battery life which needs frequent replacements. But there are ways to conserve power like switching the preview mode off. It requires rock steady position without the slightest jerks while shooting pictures or else the images look fuzzy. The other downside, if one can say so, is that it has a digital zoom as opposed to an optical zoom. But considering the compactness and price it’s justified. It’s not supposed to be high end digicam anyways.
But make no mistake, it still has great features, ease of use, price, robustness and quality which makes budding photographers like me extremely relaxed and empowered if used in the right way.
This little marvel has become my permanent traveling companion. It’s been three years, but it hasn’t given a single opportunity to complain. Perhaps that is the reason I felt obligated to write this nice review on it.